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ISRAEL

Malcolm Turnbull Greets Netanyahu

Malcolm Turnbull:

‘I came here to the shul with a message, a message of absolute solidarity for the state of Israel.
I came here with a message of solidarity on behalf of the Australian Government in the wake of that UN resolution [SC 2334] which was so regrettable. A resolution we would never support.
My Government will not support any more than the government of John Howard would, or the government of Tony Abbott would a resolution so one sided, attributing fault only to the state of Israel. That has no contribution to make to the peace process.
It was an unfortunate resolution. We regret it and we disassociated ourselves from it in our public statements and here, right here in this shul.

You know we’ve spoken of security a lot today, both at the lunch and of course Bibi and I have spoken about that in our meetings and it is plainly simple. The first duty, as I said out our press conference, the first duty of every government, of every prime minister, every president, is the safety of the people of the nation they lead.

And so the fundamental requirement of what we hope will be a negotiated outcome between Israel and the Palestinians, a two-state solution negotiated between the parties, but the fundamental condition, the foundation of that must be the safety, the security of the state of Israel and its people.
We do deplore the efforts that de-legitimise the state of Israel. We deplore the boycott campaigns. We stand with Israel. We are a committed and a consistent friend. We have been so, from the beginning [see here] and we will always be so.

Now, I want to say, however, as I observed in the article that was published in … The Australian today – it is easy to see Israel and its situation entirely through the prism of security.
That is inevitable, I suppose, given the existential threat that Israel faces.
And given the miraculous success of Israel brought by the determination, the enterprise, the indefatigable courage of its people, not simply to establish the state of Israel – that a miracle in itself – but to maintain it, to continue it, to enhance it for it to succeed again and again against extraordinary odds. That has been an extraordinary achievement. Wondrous, miraculous and now we see the state of Israel leading the world in the most important technologies of the twenty-first century.

As I said today at the luncheon which I know many of you have been at, which we were at earlier today in the city, I said that plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery and indeed it must be that Israel should be sincerely flattered because so many countries, including our own seek to capture some of that extraordinary innovative chutzpah which enables Israelis, in a nation, until the recent discovery of gas I might add, but until then, absolutely devoid of natural resources other than the brilliance and the enterprise of its people enabled Israel to develop that culture of innovation to lead in technology, to recognise, as Bibi said today, that once a nation has achieved that middle-income status, to get from there to great success and greater heights, you need to be competitive, you need to be productive and the key to that is innovation.

Why Israel Should Keep Building the Settlements By Steve Postal

An oft-repeated sentiment in the international community, college campuses, and both Democratic and Republican administrations is that Israeli settlements built following the 1967 Six-Day War are inhibiting peace in the Middle East. This sentiment, however, is wrong.

Settlements have never stood in the way of peace. In fact, Israel withdrew from territory and uprooted its own people, receiving mostly war in exchange. The settlements are a red herring; those opposed to them simply do not understand that Arab violence towards Jews predates, and runs much deeper than, the settlements. Israel has every right to build settlements and they are of vital importance to the survival of the country.

The Jews Are Indigenous to Judea and Samaria

First, the very idea that Jews should not build in Judea and Samaria (known to many as the West Bank) runs counter to the history of the last three millennia. As the indigenous people, Jews had sovereignty and pseudo-sovereignty in these lands from 1010 BCE to 617 CE (a mere twenty years before the Arab occupation of Jerusalem in 637 CE). After the Jews lost political power in Judea and Samaria, they continued to reside there until the modern period, with interludes when occupying powers forbade them from living in places like Hebron and Jerusalem. In fact, during Israel’s War of Independence (1947-1949), approximately 10,000 Jews were kicked out of or killed in Jewish communities in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

The Settlements Don’t Prohibit a Peace Deal

The settlements in Judea and Samaria are not prohibiting a peace deal. The Arabs were offered and rejected sovereignty in Judea and Samaria before the settlements (Peel Commission (1937) and U.N. Partition Plan (1947)), when there were very few settlements (the Khartoum Resolution (1967) and the Allon Plan (1967-1968)), and when there were many settlements (Camp David (2000), Taba (2001), and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s offer to President Mahmoud Abbas (2008)). Regardless of the presence, absence, and number of settlements, the Arabs either rejected or left unanswered peace offers in all of these instances.

Israeli Withdrawals Have Brought War, Not Peace

An Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria would likely not bring peace, because previous withdrawals have brought war. Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000, only to see Hizb’allah instigate war in 2006, as well as massively arm itself. Israel’s withdrawal from parts of Gaza and Judea and Samaria during the Oslo Accords in the 1990s was met with the Second Intifada (2000-2005). In exchange for Israel’s full civilian and military withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, Hamas gave Israel at least three wars. Since 2005, Hamas massively armed itself, and other terrorist groups have set up shop in Gaza as well. Lastly, while the benefits of Israel’s peace with Egypt should not be understated, there are now jihadi groups in Sinai targeting Israel, despite Israel completely withdrawing its civilian population from there in the 1980s.

The Main Reason for the Lack of Peace is Arab Incitement and Violence

Arab incitement and violence against Israel, Zionism, and Jews long predates 1967 and the settlements and is the primary reason why peace is elusive. Multiple pogroms against Jews in the Arab world go at least as far back as the Damascus Affair of 1840. By the eve of the Six-Day War in 1967, most of the exodus of the 850,000 Jewish refugees from Arab lands from 1948 through 1970 was complete, largely as a response to Arab violence and state persecution.

Violence directed towards Jews in the former British Mandate and later Israel also pre-date 1967 and the settlements. These include the Nebi Musa Riots (1920), the Jaffa Riots (1921), the Western Wall Riot and Hebron Massacre (1929), and the Arab Revolt (1936-1939) including the Tiberias Massacre (1938). Arab attacks from Jordan, Syria, and Egypt against Israel continued following Israel’s War of Independence (1947-1949), especially from 1952-1967.

How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower By Janet Levy

How did a country smaller than El Salvador with a population of eight million and few natural resources become a military superpower within a few decades?

In The Weapon Wizards: How Israel Became a High-Tech Military Superpower (St. Martin’s Press, 2017), authors Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot explain this remarkable phenomenon. Calling on their experience as Israel Defense Forces (IDF) veterans and seasoned national security analysts, they present an intriguing and engrossing account of Israel’s defensecapabilities development. From a country lacking bullets and aircraft, Israel transformed itself into one of the most effective militaries in the world and the sixth-largest arms exporter globally. Today, Western powers, including the U.S., France, the UK, Russia and China, all come to Israel to learn and establish joint ventures.

The Jewish State has several characteristics and realities that have contributed to its military prowess and technological leadership, the authors explain. From inception on, Israel has been surrounded by enemies intent on its destruction. The country was built by Jewish refugees forced from Arab countries that their families had inhabited since before the birth of Christ, and by Holocaust survivors, many smuggled past the British into the Jewish homeland. Defense of the ancient homeland was, from the beginning, a survival mission with little room for error and miscalculation. Creativity sprang from the adversity of a relentless enemy close at hand.

Constantly on the front lines of conflict, Israel was forced to break new ground and pursue unproven technologies that other countries may not have considered. The authors say this explains why Israel, among the world’s nations, invests the highest percentage of gross domestic product on research and development: 4.5% with 30% of the total for military projects. Additionally, Israel’s entrepreneurial spirit and ability to innovate is demonstrated by the fact that the tiny country has the third-largest number of companies, behind the U.S. and China, listed on the NASDAQ exchange.

Further, Katz and Bohot explain, going it alone has been a necessity for Israel. Added to problematic regional politics with hostile, oil-rich Arab neighbors is the inability to consistently depend on support from reluctant allies dependent on Gulf oil. The fledgling state responded with inventiveness and innovation to develop its weapons and defense capabilities in this hostile environment.

Israel’s economic surge in defiance of adversity Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinger

1. Notwithstanding Israel’s unique challenges of the chaotically unpredictable state of the Middle East, the Islamic and Arab onslaught, the scarcity of natural resources (other than brain power), the UN enmity, the European appeasement of rogue regimes, systematic criticism by the “elite” media and the attempt to boycott, divest and sanction, the independent, non-partisan quarterly, The American Interest, stated on January 24: “This is there is a new name on our list of The Eight Greats, Israel….

“Israel is a rising power with a growing impact on world affairs…. Large off-shore discoveries of natural gas and oil are turning Israel into an energy exporter [e.g., a $3.5bn-$4bn dollar initiative was just concluded to expand Israel’s natural gas fields]…. Turkey’s ties with Israel strengthened…. Israel’s newfound clout comes from the rise of industrial sectors and technologies that good Israeli schools, smart Israeli policies and talented Israeli thinkers and entrepreneurs have built…. The rise of domestic cybersecurity and infotech economy…. Private investors all over the world look to invest in Israel’s tech startups…. It’s not just America; India, China and Russia want a piece of Israeli tech wizardry…. In the Middle East, Israel has been transformed from a pariah state to a kingmaker…. Never has Egypt-Israel security cooperation been as close as it is today…. The rise of Iran has made Israel critical to the survival of the Sunni Arabs, including the Gulf States…. Israel begins 2017 as the keystone of a regional anti-Iran alliance, a most-favored-nation in the White House and a country that enjoys good relations with all of the world’s major powers bar Iran….

2. Bloomberg, February 16, 2017: Israel’s economy grew 6.2% in the fourth quarter of 2016, its most robust gain since 2014, sending the Shekel to its strongest level in more than two years. GDP for 2016 grew 4%, the most since 2013, supported by record-low unemployment rate of 4.3% in December, 2016. Manufacturing reached its highest level in 7 years. Exports advanced 11.2% and capital investment grew by 7.4%.

3. Israel’s debt-to-GDP ratio has systematically declined (62.1% in 2016), compared with Japan’s 250.4%, the USA’s 104.9%, France’s 97.1%, the Euro bloc’s 91.7%, Britain’s 89%, Germany’s 68.2% and South Korea’s 39.9% (Globes, January 23).

4. In 2016, Israel’s population grew by 2% – compared to 1.2% globally, 0.81% in the USA and 0.18% decline in Germany – identical to Israel’s population annual growth during the last 10 years – 83% due to natural growth and 17% due to Aliyah (Jewish immigration), resulting in a substantial expansion of Israel’s infrastructures of housing, transportation, education, health, medical, etc. (Globes business daily, January 9, 2017).

5. While global venture capital funding has declined during the last two years – according to PriceWaterHouseCoopers, Money Tree and CB Insights – $420mn were invested, during January 2017, in Israel’s hightech companies, sustaining the record level of 2016. Israel’s cyber technology companies attract investments. IntSights raised $15mn, 6 months following a round of $7.5mn. Israel’s CrediFi raised $13mn (Globes, Feb. 14). Israel’s Feedvisor raised $20mn (Globes, Feb. 1). Israel’s cyber security SentinelOne raised $70mn, led by RedPoint from the Silicon Valley (Globes, January 26), which also invested $16mn – along with Emergence Capital from the Silicon Valley – in Israel’s Chorus.ai (artificial intelligence), according to Globes, Feb. 8).

6. John Donovan, AT&T’s Exec. Vice President and Chief Strategist: In 2010, we established a research & development center in Israel, which offers a unique array of startups. Unlike other US companies, which acquire Israeli companies, we consider Israel a platform of development and expansion. AT&T’s personnel has grown 20% in 2016 (Globes, Jan. 17).

Sam Sacks on the Best New Fiction A riveting Israeli thriller by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen,

Even readers who didn’t manage to plow to the end of Tom Wolfe’s 1987 “The Bonfire of the Vanities” remember the novel’s crackerjack opening, in which a Manhattan yuppie and his mistress driving from the airport strike and kill a young black man and then flee the scene. Israeli writer Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, operating on the sound theory that good premises don’t need fixing, begins “Waking Lions” (Little, Brown, 341 pages, $26) with another hit and run. While speeding through the Negev Desert on his way home from work, neurosurgeon Eitan Green kills an Eritrean immigrant. He thinks there are no witnesses and drives away. But the next morning the dead man’s wife, Sirkit, knocks on his door bearing the wallet he left behind.

The drama that plays out between “the extorted and the extorter” takes an unexpected shape. Instead of demanding money for her silence, Sirkit forces Eitan to spend his nights working at a makeshift clinic for undocumented African migrants. To keep the exhausting arrangement secret Eitan concocts an elaborate set of lies to tell his wife, Liat, who happens to be a police detective investigating—you guessed it—his hit and run.

Ms. Gundar-Goshen turns floodlights on Israel’s unseen corners. Liat gradually exposes a drug trafficking ring involving the head of a kibbutz, local Bedouins and Sirkit’s husband. Eitan, meanwhile, is confronted by otherwise invisible masses of ailing, destitute Eritreans and Sudanese. Compelled to tend to them against his will yet increasingly ensnared by the extremity of their need, his connection to this shadow population is a compound of guilt, resentment and compassion: “Just as the smell of blood drove sharks mad, the smell of weakness made him furious. Or maybe it was the opposite, and it wasn’t that he had the power to destroy them that made him angry at them but the clever way they destroyed him. The way their wretchedness oppressed him, accused him.”

“Waking Lions,” in a propulsive translation from Hebrew by Sondra Silverston, yokes a crime story to thorny ethical issues in ways reminiscent of Donna Tartt and Richard Price. Its motor doesn’t always purr—the sections in the middle unpacking Eitan and Liat’s troubled marriage are laborious. But it’s a rare book that can trouble your conscience while holding you in a fine state of suspense.

Terrorist Appointed as Mahmoud Abbas’ Deputy, But the World Stays Silent by Sean Durns

On February 15, Fatah appointed Mahmoud Al-Aloul as a deputy and possible successor to PA President Mahmoud Abbas. Unfortunately, just like Abbas, Mr. Al-Aloul is a terrorist who has condoned violence against Israelis. And unsurprisingly, the global media — which seems uninterested in reporting unflattering stories about the Palestinians — has largely ignored the news of his selection.

According to a policy brief by analysts Grant Rumley and Evan Charney of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Al-Aloul previously served as an assistant to Palestinian terrorist Khalil al-Wazir, better known by his nom de guerre of Abu Jihad.

Abu Jihad was one of the early founders of the Fatah movement. As Middle East analyst Efraim Karsh noted in his 2003 biography of Yasser Arafat, Abu Jihad oversaw the assassination of US diplomats in Khartoum, Sudan, in March 1973. Abu Jihad was also responsible for perpetrating and planning numerous terrorist attacks against Israelis, including the 1978 Coastal Road massacre, in which 38 civilians, including 11 children, were murdered.

Tomorrow the Democratic National Committee (DNC) will have to choose the direction of the Democratic Party, as well as its…

In addition to his involvement in murdering no less then 124 Israelis, Abu Jihad also served as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Fatah’s liaison with the Soviet Union, the Syrian Baathist party and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Abu Jihad was killed by Israeli forces in 1988, but a PA-funded museum at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem is named in his honor — as are at least eight streets in PA-controlled areas.

Al-Aloul’s activities would no doubt make his mentor proud.

In their report, Rumley and Charney pointed out that Al-Aloul, who is also sometimes referred to as Abu Jihad, participated in numerous PLO terror raids, including leading a 1983 operation that captured six Israeli soldiers. After his boss’ death, Al-Aloul became the chief of the PLO’s activities in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

US Vice President Pence: ‘Israel’s Fight Is Our Fight, Her Cause Is Our Cause’ by Barney Breen-Portnoy

During the Donald Trump era, America “will stand with Israel,” Vice President Mike Pence vowed on Thursday during his address to the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland.

“Israel’s fight is our fight, her cause is our cause and her values are our values,” Pence said, prompting a standing ovation. “I’m proud to stand with the president, who stands with our most important ally, the Jewish state of Israel.”

Pence’s CPAC appearance came a day after he stopped at a recently vandalized Jewish cemetery in Missouri and lent a helping hand in the cleanup effort.

An Israeli government representative slammed the BDS movement on Friday for falsely implying that a prominent US literary society had…

One panel discussion at CPAC on Thursday was titled, “Is BDS BS? The Left’s Attack on Israel.” It was moderated by Ned Ryun, the CEO of the American Majority organization.

“BDS isn’t about taking Israel out of business,” Lisa Daftari — editor-in-chief of The Foreign Desk — said, according to the Legal Insurrection blog. “It’s about taking Israel off the map.”

Sander Gerber — a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs think tank — said attention must be brought to the Palestinian Authority’s support for terrorism, “Expose the PA and it will change the view on Israel,” he said.

Erielle Davidson — a research assistant at the Hoover Institution think tank — said education was a key to fighting BDS.

“It’ll be better that truth is known,” she said. “Follow the money. Look at all charities you contribute to and see who is sending money to the PA.” She also noted that the PA and Hamas were “equally terrible.”

Watch Pence speak about Israel below (starting at 14:50):